The Bruno Benini photography archive is one of several Australian photography archives acquired by the Powerhouse Museum, and one of the most comprehensive, covering five decades from the 1950s through to 2000.

Bruno Benini, along with Wolfgang Sievers, Mark Strizic, Dieter Muller, Henry Talbot, Helmut Newton and David Mist, was one of a group of influential emigre commercial photographers working in post-war Australia. Born in Italy, Benini migrated to Australia with his parents in 1935. While Max Dupain is recognized as Australia's genius of architectural photography, and Wolfgang Sievers the master of industrial photography, Bruno Benini (1925-2001) is one of Australia's most elegant and refined mid-20th century fashion photographers.

After studying Science at Melbourne Technical College (now RMIT University), Benini worked for a brief period for General Motors Holden where he was in charge of the foundry laboratory before returning to Italy, the place of his birth, in the late 1940s. It was there that he made the decision to pursue his love of photography and on his return to Australia joined German emigre photographer Henry Talbot at Peter Fox studios working first as a receptionist and salesman, then as assistant to Talbot. He also learnt the trade by working as a model at various times with Helmut Newton, Athol Shmith and Henry Talbot.

Benini's archive covers over five decades of Melbourne, Australian and international fashion, with strong representation of dress from the 1950s through to the 1970s. The earliest works highlight the coutured elegance of the fifties, but the collection quickly moves into the less restrictive, less tailored, mod and hippy styles of the sixties before confronting the raunchier funkier styles of the 1970s. It then also features sexier disco and club scene wear of the 1980s as well as nude male model portraiture and work done in association with the Nike-dominated 1990s. While many Australian magazines and fashion studios regularly discarded all their old stock and references, the Benini archive provides an invaluable, uniquely comprehensive, reference point for Australian (and international) fashion over these decades.

While the archive relates primarily to fashion photography, it also includes portraiture and more general commercial photography. It consists of around 200 large format photographic prints (vintage and more recent prints), numerous smaller reference prints, several thousand colour transparencies and black and white negatives produced during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and biographical material, including tear sheets, magazine and newspaper cuttings, dating from the 1950s through to the photographer's death in 2001.

Collected by Bruno and his wife Hazel Benini, it also records their working lives together - Bruno as a commercial and fashion photographer, Hazel as a fashion publicist, display stylist and advertising and marketing consultant. It highlights their close involvement with many Australian, and in particular Melbourne, fashion and dress manufacturers and retailers. It also document's Melbourne, and in particular Melbourne's Jewish diaspora's, pivotal role in the production, design, manufacture and retailing of post-WWII Australian fashion.

Many Australian and New Zealand haute couture gowns, niche labels and ready-to-wear brands are represented - from Norma Tullo (the only Australian dress designer to have a boutique outlet in the prestigious Isetan Department store in Tokyo in the 1970s) and Hall Ludlow, to Theo Haskin, Prue Acton, Sharene Creations, Solo, Simona, Mike Treloar, California Productions, Sportscraft, Sportsgirl and others. International fashion labels that were launched onto the Australian marketare also documented including Fiorucchi from Italy and Laura Ashley from England.

Many of the photographs and some of the documents relate to Hazel and Bruno's collaboration on assignments like Ninette, Sportsgirl, Sportscraft and Raymond Castles shoes. These provide insight into the photographer's profession and the working lives of people in and around the fashion industry. One small photograph shows Bruno seated on the ground, legs crossed with camera aimed a pair of tightly stockinged legs under a short ruffled skirt. Another of imported Italian shoes taken for the opening of the Raymond Castles shoe store in Melbourne 1973, was art directed by Hazel Benini and photographed by Bruno. Hazel and Bruno collaborated frequently, particularly when the initial client was one established by Hazel. For example, when she was working as the display and advertising manager for the opening of the Sportsgirl stores in 1966 and the Raymond Castles shoe shops in the early 1970s, Bruno then became the photographer.

Fashion photographs are good indicators of social change. By their very nature and purpose, fashion photographs are created and designed to document and promote change by capturing or creating the total look, mood or attitudes of the moment. Within their frames (if they're not shot in the studio which is the case for so many post-WWII photographs) they also frequently document (by capturing) natural, urban, rural, built and interior environments. These images then become highly evocative references to people, places, social, technological, environmental and industrial change at different points in time. With many of Benini's shots also taken overseas, change of another nature is also revealed - that of Australia's complex, multicultural society, it's global aspirations and it's trade, manufacturing and cultural links with the rest of the world.

Not surprisingly, the collection includes non-fashion portrait photography as numerous Australian and visiting actors, writers, artists, dancers, designers and pop singers popped into Bruno Benini's studio to have their portraits taken - perhaps in the hope that he could make them look as gorgeous as the models that appear in Benini's cutting edge fashion photography.

This comprehensive and well documented commercial photography archive complements other photographic archives acquired by the Powerhouse Museum in recent years including the Alec Murray (2008/18/1), David Mist (92/401/1; 96/44/1), Henry Talbot (93/246/1; 2008/163/1) and Janice Wakely (92/272/1) archives.

Bruno Benini was an Italian-born Melbourne-based Australian fashion photographer. He initially studied science (industrial chemistry) at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) but from the 1950s, went on to become a leading Australian fashion photographer. Benini established a lasting creative partnership with New Zealand-born fashion stylist Hazel Benini (nee Craig) after they married in 1962. Together they generated an enormous number of publicity shots promoting local fashion houses and retailers on the fashion pages of all leading Australian newspapers.

The Benini photography archive had been produced and collected over many years by Bruno and Hazel Benini (nee Craig) as a record of their working lives together - Bruno as photographer, Hazel working as a fashion publicist in display, visual merchandising and public relations for fashion designers, manufacturers, retailers and fashion editors.

The Powerhouse Museum was the first public institution to draw attention to the significance of the archive in 1996, encouraging the photographer to preserve the collection and organise it by identifying dates, models, clients and locations. Phil Quirk, a photographer and close friend of Bruno's assisted with this process. This process highlighted the significance of the collection, and led to a revival of interest in Bruno Benini's work (see production/ biography notes).

Bruno and Hazel Benini moved house several times and some of the material in the archive was lost, damaged or thrown away. Bruno Benini died unexpectedly in 2001. It became imperative that this important commercial photography archive was preserved.

The Powerhouse Museum acquired the Bruno Benini photography archive with assistance from the Australian Government's National Cultural Heritage Account in 2009.

Images on this site are reproduced for the purposes of research and study only. Whilst every effort has been made to trace the Copyright holders, we would be grateful for any information concerning Copyright of the images and we will withdraw them immediately on Copyright holder's request.